The Twin
Towers, from the Staten Island Ferry, May 12, 2001Photo by Chris
Matthew Sciabarra

Over the past year, I have been interviewing a number of
people who were in lower Manhattan on the morning of September 11, 2001,
including some who were in the Twin Towers when they were struck. It is very
difficult for many of the survivors to talk about this tragedy, but it is my
hope that, in time, I will be able to publish these interviews as exclusives of
"Not a Blog." In
the end, I believe that such re-telling is a necessary cathartic exercise.
Though we seem to trot out such stories once a year, we do so only because the
cliché is true: We must Never Forget, a
maxim that applies not only to the tragedy and its historical context, but in
honor of those who lost their lives, and of those who continue to bear witness.

My friend Ray is one of those witnesses. He wasn’t my friend
Ray back on September 11, 2001, but it is because he survived that day that we
met in 2002 and became friends. Ray wasn’t quite 31 on 9/11. He was born in
Manhattan on September 28, 1970. His parents came from Puerto Rico many years
before, and he is one of 3 children. Ray has been a lifelong New Yorker, having
attended school in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Queens, where he currently resides.

Ray has worked for a number of years as a Computer Specialist
in the NYC Mayor’s Office of Operations, which was located on the 20th
floor of 100 Church Street, one small block from the Twin Towers. On that sunny
9/11 morning, he was in his office preparing a slide presentation for then-Mayor
Rudy Giuliani’s Management Report press conference, scheduled for September 12.
It was 8:46 a.m. "First, I heard the soaring roar of a plane as it flew directly
over my building. To me it sounded like thunder—we’d had a thunderstorm the
night before—or maybe like a jet fighter. A few seconds later I heard the impact
of the plane as it hit the first tower. I felt my office shake. I then heard
screaming coming from outside my window and I turned around immediately."

It was then that Ray "saw a huge hole in the first tower.
Flames and thick black smoke were coming out of the hole," he remembered, "but I
saw no plane sticking out of the tower." Like almost everybody else in lower
Manhattan that day, Ray thought to himself: "Oh my God, what a horrific
accident." It was simply unfathomable that anybody could have actually done this
on purpose.

"I was glued to my office window watching the event take
place," he said. "I had a perfect view of the towers as they stood directly in
front of my window." These sights would be seared into his consciousness as if
by the very flames engulfing the upper floors of the North Tower. "As I was
watching, I could see people above and below the hole in the building breaking
windows and sticking their heads outside. Some were waving white cloths outside
the windows." Turning to his boss, he wondered how those people above the
hole were going to get out.

Within minutes, the smoke and flames became worse. "That is
when I saw something fall out from the side of the building." He shouted to his
boss: "Oh my God, someone jumped!"

This was not possible. "That must have been debris," his boss
pleaded. But something fell out from the building again. "I could clearly see it
was a person," he recalled.
He shouted again: "People are jumping out!" His boss focused briefly on
this unfolding nightmare, and turned away. At that moment, a co-worker came
screaming into the office; her disabled brother was
working in the North Tower. Concern for his life overwhelmed her; her legs
became weak and she collapsed. Ray dragged her to a chair in the office, trying
his best to comfort her. (Her brother was one of the fortunate survivors.)

By this time, staff were filing into Ray’s office, because it
provided the best view of the Twin Towers. They stood there, watching the fire,
watching the people jump. It was barely after 9 a.m. Another co-worker shrieked:
"I see another plane!" United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower—just as
American Airlines Flight 11 had struck the North Tower minutes before—this time
in full view of all those who were watching. The impact shook Ray’s office
building. Almost instantaneously, Ray "saw a huge piece of the plane shoot out
from the second tower, heading in a decline curve" right in the direction of his
building. "It’s gonna hit us!," he hollered. The staff ran for cover into the
fire stairwells; Ray ran to the First Deputy Director’s office to get her out of
the building because the fire alarms weren’t engaged. When the wreckage failed
to hit his building, he returned to his office to recover his backpack.

Speeding down the fire stairwells to ground level, he got to
the corner of Church Street and couldn’t process the chaos that was lower
Manhattan. He thought he might get his car, parked across from 7 World Trade
Center. But a police officer shoved him in the opposite direction. "Go North,"
the cop cried. (Several months later, the FBI sent him
a picture of his car, which had been removed and taken to the Fresh Kills
Landfill in Staten Island—along with all the other debris from Ground Zero.
Because of possible asbestos contamination, the car was deemed unusable.)

He started to evacuate north, and then his cell phone rang.
It was his sister. She had just gotten off the train for work, but her office in
the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan was dispersing for fear of another air
attack. He walked north to 14th Street, but turned around to the
sounds and sights of a collapsing South Tower. Meeting his sister on the balcony
of her office, he watched the North Tower crumble too, the skyline of lower
Manhattan now engulfed in a cloud of soot.

The bridges and waterways around Manhattan island provided an
escape route for thousands of frightened human beings. Ray and his sister walked
to 59th Street and then over the Queensborough Bridge into Queens. On
that bridge, he could see that the thick cloud had drifted into Brooklyn. His
cell phone didn’t work, but he was able to contact his brother from a local
diner. It wasn’t until 6:30 p.m. that his brother arrived to pick them up.

For Ray, the tragedy was only beginning. He knew 2 people who
worked at the WTC. One was a former co-worker who was killed that day. The other
was his cousin Harry. After the first plane hit the North Tower, Harry called
his wife. He was going down the stairs, Harry
explained to her, approaching the 42nd
floor. He told her: "I love you and I’ll see you later."

That was the last time they ever spoke.

Some weeks later, Ray’s family held a memorial service for
Harry. It was a very emotional day for everyone because Harry’s body hadn’t been
recovered. "Everyone told stories of encounters with Harry. Funny stories, sad
stories, stories of arguments and forgiveness."

Four months passed. Harry’s leg was recovered and positively
identified. The family had another, smaller ceremony, and
buried the limb in a cemetery plot.

Ray was haunted by the events that he’d witnessed, which
played over and over in his mind. He had vivid nightmares of the planes crashing
into the towers, the flames shooting out from the windows, the windows
shattering and raining down on him, people jumping from the skyscrapers.
He struggled even with sounds of approaching
planes. "Anytime I would hear a plane flying over, my heart would drop and I
would become very anxious. I would cover my ears to block out the sound and I
could not stand still in one place until the plane flew away. It was very
difficult having to live like this."

He became much more observant of his surroundings, while
walking the streets and traveling on subways. Eventually, when he had to take a
plane trip, he had an awfully difficult time dealing with the possibility that
he might be among the next victims of a fatal hijacking. "The night before I was
to fly out, I said good-bye to my family and told them I loved them, just in
case anything would happen on my flight. … When I boarded the plane, my heart
raced. When the plane took off, I felt every bump and heard every squeak that
the plane made."

Ray did return to work. His office was moved over 20 blocks
north of Church Street, awaiting the construction of a new facility that would
become a permanent home. Time has helped to heal many of Ray’s spiritual wounds,
but like all of us who might occasionally travel by
Ground Zero, he still has "an empty feeling … knowing
that once there stood a breathtaking monument."

Someday, a new
Freedom Tower will be built in its place, along with a memorial park. Ray
knows that it is the power of memory that provides a fitting tribute to the
heroes, victims, and survivors of that tragic September day.